


Into the Darkness

by DragonRider1



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, F/M, Templar Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 06:02:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3967108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonRider1/pseuds/DragonRider1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke and Isabela after Leandra’s death. Where home no longer feels like home and second guessing yourself, turns you into the very thing you once sought to end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in a Twin Verse (Called Twins Divided), where Hawke has a twin brother. Everrett Hawke romanced Anders, has always been Pro-Mage and sided with the Mages. Niul Hawke (the Hawke in this story) romanced Isabela, was uncertain of his alliance (Pro Mage before Leandra's death and Pro Templar after), and sided with the Templars.
> 
> Enjoy~

He stared at the dank, discolored wood before him, the image had to be ingrained in his mind at this point. He wanted to knock, but fear crept upon him. Into his throat and through his body, the fear stilled him in that single place for what felt like forever. He did not want to be turned away, forced back into the isolation and silence. He couldn't, he wouldn't last in that utter emptiness any longer. He would beg, plead, offer anything to just stay; for him to be away from that and have time to settle. Even the time he spent standing before a simple, harmless door, was more time away from there. Though on this side of the door, someone would eventually ask him out of worry and he did not need that. 

The hollow knock deafened him in the silence of his mind and the hallway. His hand shook against the door from the light pain of knocking too hard and the worry of no response, no refuge given to him. His hand stayed there, even as the door swung open. Eyes still focused on his curled fingers, rather than the white smock in the background. 

His eyes only turned up at the swaying figure when her slightly scarred fingers curled around his wrist; she tugged his own worked hand up to her lips and placing a teasing kiss on his knuckle. 

“Well hello there, sweetness. To what _pleasure_ do I own this visit.” Isabela's lips wrapped around each word that fell from her lips, still pressed to his skin and he carefully pulled his hand from her grasp. His fingers ghosted over where her lips had laid, before he rubbed at the lingering feeling more insistently. 

“I...I was hoping you could use a little company?” He hinted the best he could and struggled for his most charming smile, hoping to fool her despite his usual gentility. 

“Perhaps.” Bela mused and her smile never wavered, but he caught the suspicion in her eyes and felt his stomach drop. The fear built up into pinpricks behind his eyelids and a lump in his throat. He jumped into the room and shut the door behind him. His back pressed against the worn wood to give the rogue her space, in what little apology he could afford. “Hawke?” 

“Please Bela, I'm sorry. I’ll do whatever you want of me, I’ll give you any attention you like, just please do not send me back. I can't go back there, not now.” 

He felt himself tremble again; his eyes dropped to the floor in whatever submission she needed. 

His entire being jolted as he felt her fingertips brush across his cheek; his hands clenched at his sides and she quickly pulled away. As if it had been a mistake, an involuntary reaction to his pain. Before he would have remarked at it, teased her for showing such emotion and towards him of all things; a _curiosity_ , _satisfied_. 

He didn't care to fight her on whether she cared or not now; she didn't have to care at all, as long as she let him stay. 

“Hawke, why are you here? You should be home, with your brother or your uncle.” Isabela barely got the words out, Hawke shaking his head as soon as that word crossed her tongue. 

“Please Bela, I’ll do anything. Just do not force me back to the estate, it’s no home. It’s quiet and insufferable, I can’t...I can’t stand it.” Hawke begged again, he contemplated falling to his knees. If she’d let him stay he didn’t care, he’d give the pride he’d rode in on to her in a minute if it meant never facing the emptiness. It was an unending nightmare to be surrounded by all that Mother was and yet always have that void there, where Mother once was. 

“Okay, sweetness.” Isabela agreed, her voice coming out soft. He didn’t care what facade she felt the need to put on this time, whether she decided to care or not to care. He just needed this one thing from her and that was all, it would be okay as long as he didn’t have to go ho--back to the estate. 

He nodded and moved towards her, his hands going to rest on her hips and he paused as she sidestepped his loose grip. 

“Not for a thing, lover-boy.” 

Isabela instead grabbed his outreached hand and pulled him towards one side of the bed, her carefree smile still in place as she sat him down. Her hands smoothed across his shoulders as she placed a light kiss on his forehead, letting go after to make her way to the other side of bed. 

Only when he felt the bed dip behind him did he glance over his shoulder. Isabela sat in the middle of her bed, her long legs crossed in a tailor fashion, with a whetstone in one hand, and one of her daggers in the other. Hawke waited for a moment, uncertain what to think. Isabela had asked for nothing for his presence here, the pirate who always wanted something and it never came cheap. Eventually he decided simply having this was enough though, it meant staying here and it meant being away from there. He twisted himself around and laid down on his side, not bothering to remove even his boots. All he wanted to do was curl up and watch, listen and look as Bela pulled her blade across the stone. A small comfort in the sharp screech of steel on stone, better than the silence that plagued him for days since the incident. 

For a while he just watched her, his thoughts emptied and his eyes focused on the shine of her blade. The steady, constant pull of the stone across blade and small breaks in between with Bela spitting to wet the stone. It was only after a while that Isabela had stopped doing any of those things, that Hawke took notice of the silence creeping back in again. His eyes snapped up to Isabela’s face and her eyes bloomed with another soft, almost concerned look. It unsettled him to see such a look from her and he turned over. 

“Hawke.” 

“I don’t expect you to care or pretend to. I just don’t want to go back. Not to that, not to Everett’s indifference. You look at him and you wouldn’t even think Mother had just died, not with how he walks around as if that never happened.” 

“You don’t truly believe that of your brother, Hawke.” 

“No!?” Hawke growled, sitting up against the headboard with Isabela. He knew the rage showed on his face, he didn’t care. He never felt as angry as he did now, the blood boiled in his veins and now he felt entitled to it. He was tired of jokes. Letting insults and injuries roll off his back. Trying to find a decent face to wear, a smirk for every prod at his usually thick skin. “He prances back and forth through the estate with Anders, diligent and happy as ever. I knew he didn’t care for Mother as much as I did, I understood. She put too much on him, blamed him for all of our mistakes; but to just go on, like her dying doesn’t matter?” 

He spent so long, he tried protecting and smiling for Mother. He tried to do his best by her, by Everett, by every single one of their companions, even Anders. To just see Mother thrown away, by the one he called his brother. The man he looked up to for so long and who had looked after him, the little boy who had stayed by his side when he was deathly sick and wanted to help him get better. Every good image of his older brother thrown away, all because they came to Kirkwall. 

“He goes on, everyday. Protecting the Mages, working to free them all and what if he's wrong? What if I was wrong!? Mages get free and what? For every good Mage freed how many are just another monster, like Quentin? How many more families have to go through that? How many die for my brother’s _revolution_ once he’s done his one and only part?” Hawke’s voice steadily rose, determined to break the silence himself. Determined, even if Isabela could care less, that she understood his anger. That she could see as plain as day, why he couldn’t return back to a place that was no longer home and a brother who he no longer knew. 

Hawke snapped from his frenzy, Isabela’s cynical snicker jerking him from the blind red rage. Her attention on him as she placed her elbow on her knee and rested her chin in her hand. 

“Are you really asking for my opinion, Killer?” Her voice teased at him, but he could see the seriousness floating in her eyes and he nodded. 

“Yeah, I am.” His tone firm and he met her gaze, his jaw locked as Bela laughed again. 

“Because everyone deserves freedom, _everyone_. Happiness and freedom are things everyone should have and be given freely, no one deserves to be imprisoned for simply being.” Isabela explained in her own set tone, her dark look never leaving him. Where he would have once felt doubt, now he felt only anger and cruel amusement. 

“Then where is my happiness, Isabela? Don’t I deserve my happiness and freedom too? What do I have left, after what they took from me?” Hawke scoffed and he watched Isabela’s face drop again. 

“Hawke...the estate is still half yours, you have your sister, your health, you have...Aveline.” Isabela faltered, but Hawke managed a bitter laugh of his own. Just a bit of his old, mocking self slipping through. 

“There is always Aveline, right?” Hawke chuckled, the wry spin in his voice made Isabela flinch in the slightest. 

“...You always have that night with me?” Isabela managed, smirking as she crawled towards him. Bela stretched herself across Hawke’s legs, her hands brushed up his arms and coming to a rest on his shoulders. She dipped in, her lips lightly grazed against his and her smirk growing wider. “And there can always be more if you want.” 

Each of her words breathed across his skin, the smell of cheap ale and something so much like the sea itself rushing through him. 

“More nights, huh? And all I have to do is ask for it, use them to fulfill my own happiness?” Hawke paused, his fingers softly trailed down Isabela’s cheek and she leaned to his touch with her impish smile. “I shouldn’t be here.” 

“Hawke?” Isabela questioned, her face dropping. Her eyes searched hard to see what he was hiding in his own, failing as he carefully removed her from his lap and stood. “Hawke, I’m sorry. I wasn’t pressing, I’m not asking for this in re--” 

“I know. I meant I shouldn’t be here telling you this, you don’t need this...you shouldn’t have me crying on your shoulder, especially after I forced you to offer me it. I’m a Hawke, we fix things ourselves and I should have done that from the beginning. I’m sorry Bela.” Hawke apologized, making his way over to the door. 

“Hawke…” Isabela’s voice rang out, Hawke paused at the door and looked back. Bela sitting on her knees with a slight smile, for what he didn’t know though. For all he knew, she was just glad to see him go. Less of a worry for her, no need to pretend anymore. “You can sleep here tonight.” 

“I...thank you. Maybe I’ll take up that offer, if you don’t find yourself someone of better company.” Hawke chuckled and offered Isabela a smile in return, nodding with intent to return to the warm bed and invitation later. The door closed behind him as he set off to fix what he saw broken, to find his purpose amongst the chaos. Niul Carrette Hawke who was a protector, a warrior, a fighter. 

_“Grand Cleric Elthina?”_

_“Ah, Leandra’s eldest, I’m an sorry for your loss. Is there anything at all, that I can I do for you?”_

_“Her second eldest, your grace...I wish to become a Templar.”_


End file.
